If you want to start your computer up from scratch to improve performance, or clear it completely to get rid of all your information, you should learn how to erase a hard drive. It's not difficult, but you will need to do more than just manually delete files in order to successfully remove all of your data.
Introduction
There are several reasons why you might want to erase your computer's hard drive. If you're selling it or giving it away, it is a good idea to delete all of your personal information. If you have sensitive materials that you don't want others to find, clearing your hard drive will help protect your privacy. If your machine is acting up, deleting everything in the hard drive and then starting it up again from a disc may help speed up and smooth out performance. Whatever the reason, following the steps below can ensure that your hard drive is successfully purged of all information.
Step 1: Reformat Your Drive
Reformatting will not completely erase all information, so if you are selling or giving away your computer you should use one of the other steps outlined in this guide, as well. If you just want to clear your data to help your machine run more smoothly, however, this is a good option. Reformatting will get rid of all shortcuts to your files, so that they will be inaccessible unless recovery software is utilized. Before reformatting:
- Back up any important files to a disc
- Make sure you have an installation CD
- Gather your software CDs, and make sure you have all codes necessary to reinstall
- Now, place the installation CD into your CD ROM drive. Turn your computer off, then start it back up and boot from CD. Go through the installation process as directed.
Step 2: Use Software
If you want to make all data irretrievable, you will probably need to use some hard drive-erasing software. This type of software can do what reformatting cannot: ensure that nobody will be able to access your old info, even if they use data-recovery programs. Here are a few to try:
- Norton SystemWorks (contains an application called WipeInfo)
- OnTrack Data Eraser
- KillDisk Hard Drive Eraser
Step 3: Check
If you want to be absolutely, positively sure that your data is gone forever and will never be seen again, use a data recovery program on your computer to see if you are able to dig up any of the files that you thought you erased. Here are some sites to check out:
- r-tools technology
- OnTrack Data Recovery
- Data Doctor
